Joni4TA

My CC brought this to me about a week ago so they could bounce it off someone they could trust. The CC wanted my opinion, my thoughts, my advice. I looked into it - what did we need to do - how do we need to do it, who needs to be involved, etc. It's like being sucker punched from the side, under the jaw, being knocked out cold and waking up on the floor in a pool of blood with a broken mandible. I "came to" in about 2 days of mulling it all over. And I got firm with the CC and let them know under no uncertain terms - we MUST report this, and ASAP! We have NO CHOICE!

I gave the CC all the information I could find on National's website; I have copied and pasted into email, everything I discovered. It's the same stuff you all have copied and pasted to me! Trust me, I GET IT! I have taken EVERYTHING you have all said to heart, this I promise you. I have passed on my thoughts to the CC, and given them a no-holds barred reality check. I have given a clear and concise direction - REPORT IT NOW! DO NOT WAIT!

I owe the CC at least an ounce of respect, to let them handle this THEIR WAY. It's THEIR first hand account, NOT MINE. They came to me as a friend. The CC is just as bothered by this as I am, I assure you. I need to give the CC the trust, the respect and the time to do what needs to be done. Not even sure I can make it a week but I am going to try.

I went to Council today for some other stuff & talked to my DE. He asked me about how things are going with Psycho Female Scouter, and I warned him to hang on about a week because we're all going for another roller coaster ride, and the Psycho is the ride operator again. I told him to expect to hear from our CC, and if that doesn't happen, I will be calling him myself. I also told him it's major, and it ain't gonna be pretty. So he has somewhat of a heads-up. He's expecting to hear from me in the coming week. As I said, I am hoping he hears from our CC and not me. But either way, HE WILL HEAR FROM ME! I also owe HIM that much.

I will keep you all updated, I promise that too. The clock is ticking. Trust me, I feel it in my head and heart, basically with my entire being! I told my dear husband today - I got a BAD BAD BAAAAAAD feeling about all this and I am anxious. That's women's intuition for ya! It's like walking around with a proverbial black cloud around my head. I told him I have reached my limit, and I feel like a volcano about to blow it!

One week ya'll... and that was from yesterday! By next Wednesday this is all going to land like "Little Boy" on Hiroshima - in my DE's office - one way or another.

If I make it that long.... that is debatable!

And packsaddle - in reference to the dream? How about Alice Cooper and Welcome to My Nightmare instead? LOL

I think $1 a year is a crock.

I also think $200,000 a year sounds steep.

Philly shouldn't have to kowtow to the BSA, and the BSA shouldn't be expecting their cake and think they can eat it too.

It's a shame things always have to go into court and make big media scandal though.

I do wonder what OTHER organizations are still getting a serious break like that $1 a year thing, and will continue to - because their views concur with the city's though? Or at least they haven't been thrown into the limelight.

I wear the BSA green pants and the tan uniform shirt at all Council, District and Troop functions, to include travel to and from Troop camping trips. On the weekend camping trips I wear BSA shorts or pants, and a Class B Troop T-shirt, and always my hiking boots.

Committee Meetings are usually informal and are generally held at my house so I wear my casual kicking around the house clothes - no slippers or short shorts, but comfortable stuff, and sometimes I wear flip-flops.

Well, at the risk of further hi-jacking Eamonn's thread... (sorry Eamonn)

OGE - I have to say I disagree with the decision to allow the dispersing of any birth control in a public school. There are legal places where the young can obtain these items, privately funded or otherwise. I don't believe the public should fund contraceptives for public schools.

eolesen - with all due respect, I can't just pick up the phone and "make the call today." I am not the one with enough information to report about anything. My CC is.

I know darn well the SE will be on the phone to the DE faster than white is on rice. I know my DE personally. He will be the one I speak to. He is the one that is aware of all the other issues we've had with Miss Psycho Female Scouter - and has informed me that our Field Director would love to toss her on her ear. Maybe this is exactly what they need to do that. With any flippin luck I won't have to talk to my DE at all - and my CC will, as it should be.

Sorry... but if I get on the phone to the SE (someone I do not know at all) and I have no idea what the heck I am talking about, trying to tell a tale about a possible activity on a campout in my own frickin Troop (when I don't even know WHICH campout), I am going to sound like an idiot calling up there saying,

"So-and-so told so-and-so, and then the second so-and-so told me, that two Scouts in Troop 12345 were possibly experimenting, sexually on some campout."

That's all I know about this. That's all I can offer the SE. That's not enough IMHO. That's WHY the CC wants to have the meeting I just posted about, I assume???? I hope???? To bring everyone into the loop. I have to trust that the CC will do what needs to be done in a timely manner. The CC is the one who received the allegation FIRST HAND, not me. The CC talked to me about it because they know I have more years in Scouting, more training, etc. And I told the CC what I knew - that we HAD to report it, no if's and's or but's!!

I'll give the CC one week from today, and that is IT! At that point, I PROMISE I will make the call and sound like a complete bumbling idiot, using the script above, verbatim. ON MY HONOR, that's my promise!

Hey, YEAH! Let's just punish people who have morals, and seek revenge on anyone who tries to raise a new generation to have morals too! What evil people those Boy Scouts are.... we should extort money from them!

UGH!

**sarcastic eyeroll**

Sorry, I missed two points I wanted to answer.

For Beavah - I meant to say, I thought you were saying the 10mi bike ride was required for 2cd class. I see it was an either or thing.

His disability:

According to the IEP forms his father gave me, the OTR (Occupational Therapist) states, "diagnosis of Asperger's in the Autism spectrum."

Then there is something about "Sensory Modulation" and the OTR states, "he continues to have underlying upper body weakness and sensory processing problems, which impact fine motor skills." There is something else about low normal muscle tone, fine motor delay and sensory processing issues that affect his ability to react, and the speed in which he does so.

He uses something called a "right start" pencil gripper, and Alpha Smart technology (?). It also says because of the issues in the above paragraph his fluency in writing is sometimes illegible.

Beavah - Ohhhhhh.... ok that makes sense then! The boys did a 25 mile hike several months ago and that's how this Scout made it through 2cd class rank.

Hunt - exactly. I looked through everything thoroughly to make sure that the boy could make it to Eagle, if he so chooses, without any additional issues coming up. His father and I discussed the Hiking/Cycling vs. Swimming and the E. Prep vs. lifesaving in relation to the boy's abilities. So this kid ought to be good to go if we can substitute this pesky Swimmer Test for him.

I turned in the packet today to the Council Advancement Committee - so we'll see how long until they get back to us! ~* Prayin' *~

Of course after I posted this, I was navigating around Scouter.com and found the other forum with the Scouts with Disabilities! Leave it to me to post in the wrong place! *DOH*

I don't know - - - I am sort of liking the extra " in all the posts here. It makes the site even more unique :-)~

 Spinoff from this thread:  http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=169621

I turned in the Request today for Alternate Requirement for a Scout's "BSA Swimmer Test" First class requirement.Please pray for expediency!

Thank you!

Our Troop was only having a CoH twice a year, and announcing what the boys had earned between those dates at the COH, from a sheet of paperwork. Cards, Badges and Patches were being handed out at Troop meetings, within 1-2 weeks of them earning them.

The Troop just decided they wanted to have 4 CoH's a year instead of 2, and only hand out Rank badges at regular Troop Meetings, with everything else given at the CoH's. I think this will work better.

Yes, I have to remember I am only one person. I am not an island, and I can only do so much. I can't force other volunteers to do what I think they should do, and in a time-frame I feel is right. I can't let it get to me too much either. The show must go on. I need to remember that I only control myself, and not the actions or words of others.

There is one positive here that I can think of. I have learned a very valuable lesson. From now on I don't care who comes to me with an "issue", I am not going to wait and pussy foot around hoping others will come to their senses, whilst allowing myself to be drawn into a bowl full of drama and gossip!

I thoroughly dislike drama and don't tolerate it well in my life - never got along with a whole lot of girls/women for that very reason. It really ticks me off that this is happening, and there isn't a whole lot *I* can do about it.

I am going to give this one week, and one week only - and then I am taking it to the DE myself - PERIOD!

The CC wants to set up a meeting with 2 Committee Members (one being me), the Scoutmaster, and an Asst. SM to discuss this. Frankly, I am not sure they're going to like my input because I am going to say that the meeting, in my opinion, is a waste of time - and that we shouldn't even BE discussing anything, until the DE has been informed of the allegation - PERIOD! I believe it's hemming and hawing around the task at hand, and just takes more people for another ride on the drama roller coaster - and it's flippin' irritating me even further!!

Is it just me? Am I being over-sensitive about this now? Or does it seem asinine to have a meeting about this at Troop level, at this point in the game?

Going to the CO and/or COR is pointless guys, they are about as involved with our Troop as a newborn baby is with potty training.

Me? I am just a lowly Committee Member, and don't want to step on the CC's toes by going over their head. This just came to light in the last week, and I am hearing about it all third-person anyway (read heresay). I need to respect the CC enough to give them some time to do what they need to do before I start hopping up and down and demanding what take place. I will if I have to though.

I told the CC yesterday it's not our job at Troop level to sort this all out - we are however mandated to report - period. Somehow, getting wrapped up in all this drama, I, too, had let it slip past me, the fundamental teaching under our YPT to just report and let the higher-ups handle these kinds of situations.

My request for the JASM to talk to the accused Scout was simply that the MySpace page get removed, nothing more. I felt it was a good idea since he is associated with our Troop. The boys are friends - more was discussed. I had nothing to do with that discussion and do not know what they all talked about.

I have requested through the CC, that the Scoutmaster remove the Scout in question from Youth Leadership until this thing can get sorted out. I also suggested that we inform the Scout and his parents, at that time, of the allegation and the fact that we have no choice but to report it, true or not.

Aside from that, it's tearing me up inside that MY Troop, and the Boy Scouts of America that I LOVE and have been involved in for over a decade, is being drug into this mess. I am not going to lie and say I am not emotional over this. It's killing me. I don't like it, I didn't sign up for this drama, and I don't appreciate it in my life, and more importantly, in the life of the Boys I volunteered to serve!!!

Ditto on the post "preview" issue, and apostrophe''s are all * " * here as well.

Well, I was able to get the Troop page uploaded late last night! YAY!

However, I have had some issues with being able to edit my own posts. Yesterday I got the message popped up that said I wasn''t authorized to edit my own post! This was within 5 minutes of posting it, so I don''t know what was up with that. I navigated away from it after two attempts and just left the typos in the original post.

Also, my "PREVIEW BEFORE POSTING" option is not working either.

Ok, I have to explain this "allegation" came from a very non-credible source. (I think I posted that earlier, but didn''t get into all the drama involved - so here goes).

This female Scouter has been reported HERSELF for YP issues, she acts like she''s 15, has no respect for spacial & personal physical boundaries, is the touchy-feely type, etc. She makes young teenage boys with testosterone, feel uncomfortable around her. My son has come straight out and said he thinks she acts like a "ho." She has come straight up to our brand new DE, fresh out of college and new to Scouting - and she flat out accused HIM of being gay and asked him if he was - AND this psycho is practically stalking our Scoutmaster because she wants to engage in an extra-marital affair with him! (She has been sounding off like a siren to anyone who will listen, and admits to the whole world (new DE included) that she enjoys having affairs with married men.) Yes, she is married herself though!

She''s even solicited boys in our Troop to write statements about the Scoutmaster and his wife having any sort of verbal disagreements on Scout events because she wants the Scoutmaster''s wife banned from all BSA functions because of temper (so she can weasel in and SEE him herself!!!). If you ask me, the Scoutmasters wife, who is also one of our Committee Members, is dealing with a predator in this psycho female Scouter, and no wonder she feels insecure about it! This female Scouter is not even involved in our Troop though - she''s doing all this as a Cub Scouter in a Pack, in another locality for crying out loud! Strangely enough, she finds legitimate reasons to come to our town and get closer to our Troop.

Our Troop Committee, because of all the crazy things this female Scouter has done, has met, and all agreed she can have absolutely NOTHING to do with our Troop, no dealings with, and no association with us whatsoever, indefinitely. She was told this about 8 months ago, and was absolutely furious!

Her backlash has been complete disregard for our Committee''s decision. She shows up at our meeting place, has since convinced the District Commish that she should be our Unit Commisioner, and was trying to convince our Committee Chair that she NEEDED to be at our Troop meetings, AND Committee meetings because it was "her job", and that she would be coming, how we needed to work with her on this, and how we, the Committee should be totally OK with her presence, as long as no one told the Scoutmaster''s wife (which we just put our foot down and said Not just NO - but NEVER!) She was removed as our UC as soon as we she was appointed and started harrassing us again. District has asked us to basically keep a record of all of it. I believe they are working on a case to remove her. But she''s slick.... she has already been reported by 2 of our Boy Scouts for trying to engage them in inappropriate conversations regarding her nude sunbathing preference, and speaking with teenage Scouts with sexual undertones, inuendoes, etc.

As I said, she is a whack-job and a half, has NEVER attended ANY of our campouts and would not know one thing or the other about any alleged "experimentation" on any campouts. In fact, the accusation she made sounds proposterous and she can''t seem to back it with any facts, so it''s essentially all heresay. It seems like she just picked a couple Scouts from our Troop out of the blue and said to herself, "Oh one of them MIGHT be gay, so I am going to accuse them BOTH of doing something on the Troop campouts."

The one boy she is making the accusations about, she has named, but refuses to own up and tell us who the other boy might be or give specifics about the truth. So in my opinion, this woman has very little credibility.

I don''t want to take any chances with gay Scouts or YPT issues either, BELIEVE ME! But I trust this woman''s word like I''d trust Osama Bin Laden.

My problem with all of it is, even with psycho accusers, you CAN sometimes find an ounce of truth in their words. I am struggling to find the truth, and yes I talked to my son about it in general capacity. He said he wasn''t all that close to this accused Boy Scout, but told me who was. I did talk to THAT boy, who is our JASM. And our JASM talked to the accused gay Scout. I believe he may have convinced the accused gay Scout to delete the MySpace page, and the JASM told me the boy is very upset because he feels completely used and betrayed by the Psycho Female Scouter! Who can blame him!?!?! I don''t know what he told her, confided in her or whatever. But as I said... an ounce of truth is about all I can believe comes out of her mouth.

In full spectrum, this whole darn thing is a flipping mess and I can constantly find this psycho female Scouter in the middle of it ALL, nearly every single time our Troop is involved in a crisis of some kind - there this woman is, dead center.

It''s just a total flipping insane hosed-up soap opera drama! One that I didn''t ask for (certainly) when I put my application in to be an Adult Member of this Troop. I am just trying to muddle through the mess, one day at a time, and every day remind myself that this is for the boys, and no one else, and try to work in my total capacity to make sure the boys have a safe, sound, and enjoyable Scouting experience. **SIGH**

I actually like the idea. I think, at first, there would be majorly disgruntled folks and we''d lose some units, or units would get combined with others. That''s too bad, but it might be worth it in some respects. In the long run, training would probably end up the rule rather than the exception, and it would become an anchored & common part of the Council activities instead of a lone & disappointing prospect.

My dear husband is our District Training Chair. Our District is so large, it encompasses 6 counties, and over 500 square miles. He''s created a training schedule and split each section of the District into 4 zones. Within a 4 month period each zone of the entire District has been visited, and a full training team of 4-6 Volunteers dispatches themselves into each zone, 3 times a year. They train for ALL positions. So in essence, an Adult leader who doesn''t want to or can''t drive to the Council - gets catered to by a volunteer training team an additional 3 times per year.

In one case, my husband received confirmation from folks promising to be at the training THE NIGHT PRIOR - and he drove with his team of 5 over 100 miles. Guess what? NONE of those Scouters showed up. Apparently it was too "inconvenient" for them! **eyeroll** It''s for people like this, that I say - go ahead and make training mandatory, and if their units fold - shame on them.

If 6 volunteers gave up their entire Saturday, away from their families, to come down to your darn zone, confirming your attendance the night before, make the long trip and you are a no-show? Then you obviously couldn''t care two jumps through a rolling cheerio about Scouting and training, and you shouldn''t be a leader at all, IMHO.

If we were sending our Scouts out to go rock climbing and swimming for the weekend with a couple adults who knew very little about Boy Scouts, never had Scoutmaster Fundamentals, Outdoor Skills, youth protection, first aid, or CPR, and didn''t find it important enough to go to Climb On Safely, Safety Afloat and Safe Swim Defense training.... But hey they showed up in a uniform, they said they were the Scoutmaster and Asst. SM - we assume they MUST be trained, right? They obviously know what they''re doing.... they had to have filed a tour permit and all that.... so you think.

And something happens to a couple Scouts...... God forbid...

Who exactly would be to blame? The BSA? I think not! Especially if they already pulled these idiots off the charter for not bothering to go and get trained!

I know, it''s an unlikely scenario, but I can see why "threatening" to pull a charter would be useful if leaders won''t get trained, at least in my District, where even though they get the training brought to their neighborhoods, they still fail to show up.

And with all the run-around we''ve gotten trying to "do the right thing" and go through the Council Advancement Committee for the BSA Swimmer Test requirement of First Class Scout, I wish we had taken it up ourselves at Troop level to go ahead and make the alternate. But, I digress.... it is what it is!

OGE - You''re not in trouble with me. If you see my last post, I referred to the Advancement Committee Policies and Procedures Book, BSA #33088. I know, I have all these books and publications and I referred to them before providing our Troop Committee request, and I included a copy of a letter from the Scout''s occupational therapist. I took it to the Council committee, and it wasn''t enough. They gave me a stack of 11 forms that were copied and pasted from the "Working with Scouts With DisAbilities" website located at: http://www.wwswd.org

AND - an Application for Alternate Eagle Scout Rank Merit Badges to fill out too! (The Scout, his family and occupational therapist aren''t asking for MB alternatives or Eagle Scout Rank alternatives here).

I guess that''s the part I don''t get. Why all this additional paperwork that doesn''t seem to make sense, especially if it''s not tailored to Scouts with Special Needs and/or not approved or adopted by the District, Council or National for use in such a situation?

I have to chalk it up and just deal with it, I know, but it seems silly and tedious and least of all frustrating!

Well that was my belief as well - if you''re gay, you are not a part of the BSA - PERIOD!

Then I come across this policy... and it clearly says, and ALL IT SAYS is,

--------------------------------------------

"In the unlikely event that an older boy were to hold himself out as homosexual, he would not be able to continue in a youth leadership position."

--------------------------------------------

It doesn''t say "removed from Scouting" like the policy about Employment and Adult Leadership with the BSA states.

Why would the BSA leave it ambiguous? What are their intentions here? Is the Boy out of Scouts completely or just out of a Youth Leadership position????????

That was my original question - to which no one of us can seem to come up with an answer.

evmori - we didn''t have a DAC at the time. We now have one brand spanking new District Advancement Chair, and the former DAC has moved on to District Commish. Neither one of them knew in APRIL what to do so going to them was not helpful at all. They are the ones that left us hanging for an answer from April to July, as to what we, The Troop, were supposed to do for the Scout. Besides, after reading the Advancement Committee Policies and Procedures Book, BSA #33088, it''s totally clear I never needed to talk to the DAC in the first place. They have nothing to do at all with the process. I guess I did them a favor by at least letting them know about the situation.

NealOnWheels - the only reason there are 2 District signatures required is because, since they don''t have any standard forms to use for this sort of thing, we had to use the "Application for Alternate Eagle Scout Rank Merit Badges", which requires the two district signatures. And I agree about the hoops - it''s just insane!

Beavah - Second Class Rank doesn''t require a 10mi bike ride. Where is that from? Second Class does however require swimming 25 FEET on the surface of the water after jumping in over the head, turning around and swimming another 25 feet. Is that what you meant? The Boy did that already as these are the same requirements for the BSA Beginner Swimmer - he just can''t make it through the entire 200 YARDS of swimming/treading water required in the BSA Swimmer Test. He''s done everything else for First Class. There is a HUGE difference between the Beginner Swimmer/Second Class requirements(50 feet in the water), and the BSA Swimmer Test/First Class requirements (200 yards in the water).

All involved absolutely INSIST this Scout EARN all his ranks and Merit Badges, not just be given them based on a disability or impairment. I am 150% on board with that. I just don''t understand why all the red tape and ridiculousness, and the non-uniformity on the whole matter.

Page 13 of the 2007 Boy Scout Requirements Book, tells us all about Alternate Requirements for Tenderfoot, 2cnd Class, and 1st Class, and how to go about them. They make the process sound so carefree. It''s certainly not, and I think the main reason is because everyone is not used to Scouts with Special Needs, uneducated about Special Needs, and we, the BSA in its entirety, are not properly equipped to actually handle Scouts with Special needs, though we definitely should be. Special Needs boys are fast becoming more of a rule than the exception in Boy Scouts! It''s time the BSA gets it right, they need to "BE PREPARED" and in so doing, will then and only then be able to prepare its Adult Leaders to handle Special Needs Scouts accordingly.

Unfortunately there is more than one way the Scout was "outted."

His MySpace page declares his orientation gleefully, talks about escapades he''s been involved in as well as group sex, etc. The website was stumbled upon by a member of our Troop committee who was told by their Scout son to "just look him up on MySpace" (Our Troop maintains a website at MySpace for recruitment - the Committee member is the webmaster who runs it) to get his email address to send them photos from a recent Scout event. The Parent/Committee member backed out of the MySpace page as soon as they saw all the "gay stuff" on it (yes I have seen the page, it''s unmistakeably male-male conducive), and did not try to contact the Scout about the photos through MySpace messaging. They instead waited til the next troop meeting and asked the boy simply for his email address instead.

A female Scouter from outside our Troop apparently had gained this Boy''s confidence - the Boy revealed personal information to her, and then this Scouter turned around and betrayed that very same confidence with the boy by running straight to our Committee Chair and reporting the Scout''s conversations with her and what she knew about his sexual orientation to the Unit Commissioner and our Troop Committee Chair.

In both instances, it''s a slippery slope, granted partly heresay - if I adopted the "Dont Ask Dont Tell" policy of the Military, this would not be in question. It would simply be ignored, yet we would keep a watchful eye about Scouting events to make sure there was no hanky-panky kind of stuff going on, and no conversations about sex or sexuality - PERIOD, gay or hetero.

The stumbling on the MySpace page technically proves nothing - I can say I am the owner and sole operator of the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on the internet - IF I WANT TO - it doesn''t make it TRUE!

Whatever a Boy Scout reveals to a Scouter, however - is probably not deniable. Though there are some issues with this Scouter''s motivations and intentions, her information does appear to have some validity. In addition, this female Scouter is a "MySpace friend" to the Scout as well. The Scouter claims the Scout told her about "experimentation" that was happening at a campout and that the boy is or was dating another Scout! Again, this could all be heresay - I am considering the source, and the source is a whack job and a half!!!!

None of our Troop Committee wants to talk to the Boy Scout in question directly about this at this time. In my case, I believe he will tell me "the truth" about his sexual orientation (that I feel I know, that my son has told me he knows, that another Scout has confirmed to me that he knows) and in doing so, seal his fate with Scouting.

In addition, apparently at a recent campout there was some silly discussion about the boys calling each other "gay"... not like homosexual but the kind of "Dude, you are so gay" comment teenagers make - replace the word "gay" with "stupid" or "dumb" or something like that and you''ll get the general idea I am trying to convey. The Scout in question allegedly replied, "Why yes as a matter of fact I am" or something to that effect. A younger (12yr old) Scout ended up calling his mother from the campout, wanting to know what "gay" meant since one of the Scouts was saying he was. The mother asked to speak with the younger boy''s grandfather (who was present at the campout and is our acting Unit Commissioner/Asst. Scoutmaster) and the grandfather got an earful.. "What are "those people" teaching my son out there!?!?! What''s going on!?!?!" etc.

I don''t know.... if you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be faced with having to think about something like this in the BSA, I would have told you, you were nuts! Yet here I am...

Scouts with DisAbilities.... has an excellent website with some great plans. I wish National would adopt these guidelines (and their paperwork), and I wish we had more guidance from the Troop level on up as to how to handle Advancement issues for Special Needs Scouts, throughout the Scouting world.

I have a Scout who cannot complete the BSA Swimmer Test. He is a Beginner Swimmer and that''s due to his permanent condition and upper body weakness. His Occupational Therapist has written a letter requesting we (the Troop) modify or assign an alternate requirement for this particular one so he can obtain the First Class Rank.

So our Troop Committee met with the boy''s parents, discussed his abilities and decided that a 2.5 mile bike ride would be equally as challenging to his lower extremities, and require similar endurance. (Incidentally, he completed the bicycle ride on 9/4.)

We then sent the request to our District Advancements Chair for approval. We thought it would just require her to sign off on and we''d be good to go. Unfortunately she was brand new and had to consult with the outgoing Dist. Adv. Chair who wasn''t entirely sure what to do about our request either, but knew that we needed to follow a certain procedure and "get the right paperwork."

I looked all over National''s website for "the right paperwork" to no avail. My husband volunteers on the District staff so he picked up the phone and made a couple of phone calls. And our Senior DE tells my husband to have me call this lady who works with Special Needs Scouts as she will know what to do.

I called her and met with her. She sits on the Council Advancement Committee. She tells me basically that there are NO "UNIFORM" FORMS adopted by National or even our Region, Council or District that deal with this kind of thing. Because of this, she hands me an Application for Alternate Eagle Scout Rank Merit Badges, and a whole bunch of other forms (that came from the Scouts with DisAbilities website), called an ISAP (Individualized Scouting Advancement Plan) contract. This ISAP thing is basically modeled after the similar process of an IEP that occurs in the public education system setting.

I learned, that apparently our Council is not fond of allowing modifications, substitutions or otherwise granting the approval for alternate requirements. Well geee, ain''t that fun?

In addition to this new MOUNTAIN of paperwork that I need to have the Scout, the parents, the occupational therapist, the Scoutmaster, the Committee Chair, and two members of the District staff sign - I also have to get a "more detailed statement" from the occupational therapist that includes "medical terminology" and lists the Scout''s "specific diagnosis" as well as indicate whether the impairment is permanent or temporary. If his condition is temporary, she starts telling me about how developmentally disabled adults actually have Cub Scout programs that they can do. exCUSE ME!?!?!?!!

And THEN - after I go get all that information above, I can turn it back into her and THEN we should all count on waiting up to another 120 days for the Council Advancement Committee to meet so they can determine whether or not to grant the alternate!!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Is anybody else ready to pull out their hair in solidarity with my frustration?

I''ll tell ya, I felt like we should have never taken it out of the Troop level and just made the command decision to "OK" the alternate and move this Boy Scout on his merry way to First Class Scout. But I knew that would be wrong, and this is what we get sometimes for trying to do the "RIGHT" thing.

This boy has been WAITING since April for a decision. I just came on board with it in July, but STILL! This process is absolutely ridiculous!!!!

Has anyone else had to deal with this kind of thing? What do other Councils do?

Unfortunately I can''t turn out the light, I need the input on this one.

If an older Boy becomes a known or avowed homosexual - does he.....

1) Get tossed out on his ear?

2) Get to stay in the Troop and just never hold ANY leadership position, and never progress past First Class?

3) Get to stay in the Troop, get to progress past First Class by being given other POR''s that aren''t considered direct Youth Leadership?

And lastly - if you had an older Scout, who is a known and avowed homosexual who presents himself as such, and takes option 3 above...... makes it to his Eagle BOR, how many of you (if you were sitting on the EBOR) would grant that Rank to the Boy???

I am CONFUSED about the policy!

That does seem rather silly. I, too live in a very rural community, though we have the luxury of an asphalt road and there is ONE street light at the end of my road *about a 1/4 mile away* down by the community mailbox.

We don''t have public transportation within at least a 20-mi radius and our raods are riddled with potholes and many are still dirt and if we''re lucky - roadbase. Our property taxes are high as well. I think ours are like $4,000 and nearly half of that goes to the local school district. I''d be a little peeved if I was told my taxes were going to subsidize public transportation.